+0.00(+0.17%)

China Commercial Credit to Launch Online Loan Portal in March

WUJIANG, CHINA--(Marketwired - Feb 18, 2014) - China Commercial Credit, Inc. ( NASDAQ : CCCR ), a microfinance company whose current major business is providing microcredit loans and loan guarantees to small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), farmers and individuals in Jiangsu Province, today said it has developed an online loan portal scheduled to launch in March and be available on mobile platforms later this year. The portal, the first in China to be offered and managed by a microcredit company, will pair prospective borrowers with willing lenders throughout the nation and incorporate CCCR's well-established high standard of credit risk assessment.

Whereas many of China-based loan portals involve peer-to-peer transactions and do not require a borrower to submit either a loan guarantee or sufficient collateral, the CCCR portal, Pride Lending Club, will require one or both. These are analyzed by Pride, which will post the loan application only after determining the creditworthiness of the prospective borrower to be of a level sufficient to minimize risk to the lender.

The process begins by Pride forming working alliances and signing a General Credit Contract with various qualified financial service entities, including small lenders, state-owned guarantee companies, large investment firms, pawn shops and high net-worth individuals to act as potential guarantors for the loans. In each Contract, the financial service entity agrees to:

(2) accept Pride's limit on the maximum aggregate value of loans it is allowed to guarantee; and

(3) refer prospective borrowers to Pride for a review and posting of the loan application.

In the next step, Pride conducts a comprehensive credit analysis of the loan application to determine the authenticity of its information as well as its compliance with the General Credit Contract. Upon the satisfactory review of a loan application and guarantee/collateral information, Pride will post qualified loan applications and guarantees on its portal and initiate a bidding process amongst interested lenders in order to determine which of them is willing to make the loan and at what interest rate. Once the loan is made, Pride will conduct post-loan monitoring and ongoing credit risk management.

For services provided, Pride will receive service fees of approximately one to two percent of the total loan. Pride will undertake no credit risk for any loan completed via the portal.

Pride will be managed by Mr. Chen Yan, who has nearly 30 years of experience in the financial industry including ten years in a management position with the China Banking Regulatory Commission.

"We are very excited to be launching Pride Lending Club," said China Commercial Credit CEO, Mr. Huichun Qin. "Together with our approval to act as a loan guarantor on the Jiangsu Province Financial Bureau's online portal and our new equipment leasing company, Pride Financial Leasing, we are at the forefront of expanding into niche businesses serving the SME market."

Mr. Qin added, "By taking advantage of existing relationships that qualified financial service entities have with their broad client bases, to be potential borrowers and lenders, and capitalizing on the reputation of China Commercial Credit as the first Chinese microfinance company to list on NASDAQ, we believe that with a limited marketing budget, Pride Lending Club will be able to build its online portal in a relatively short period of time."

About China Commercial Credit

China Commercial Credit (http://www.chinacommercialcredit.com), founded in 2008, provides business loans and loan guarantee services to more than 360 small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), farmers and individuals in China's Jiangsu Province. Due to recent legislation and banking reform in China, these SMEs, farmers and individuals -- which historically had been excluded from borrowing funds from State-owned and commercial banks -- are now able to borrow money at competitive rates from microfinance lenders. According to 2012 data, SMEs, farmers and individuals account for eight of ten jobs in China and comprise 60 percent of the nation's GDP.

Investors wishing to receive CCC's corporate communications as they become available may go to http://www.ir-site.com/china-commercial-credit/default.asp and register under Email Alerts. The company's blog, "From The CEO," also appears at the same site. Each new blog post will be announced on the company's Twitter account, @CCCR_update, where readers may link directly to the post.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of United States securities laws. You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties (some of which are beyond our control) or other assumptions that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason after the date of this release to conform these statements to actual results or to changes in our expectations. You should review the factors described in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in our prospectus filed with the SEC on August 14, 2013 and other documents we file from time to time with the SEC. We qualify all of our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements.